The East Kent Warbow Society was borne out of an idea to hold a medieval archery shoot in Kent. With the closure of some groups / societies and others being too far away. We decided to create something in Kent that catered for the older type of bow and the heavier poundage bows. Jason from Canterbury Medieval Combat and Nick from Classic Bowyer set about putting this together.
After a couple of false starts hampered by covid in recent years, we finally have an embryonic society with a growing and enthusiastic membership. We meet at Betteshanger Park near Deal, Kent each month. Currently we have had several ‘warm-up’ meets to gather members and get to know each other, simply shooting targets. We look forward to putting together roving and field shoots as the summer progresses.
We welcome anybody who has a genuine interest in truly traditional, military style archery from any culture or tradition. We welcome longbow and ‘horsebow’ including composite bow replica utilising modern materials (e.g. glass, carbon-fibre) as we recognise how expensive and difficult it is to obtain natural composite bows. The only thing we do not allow is modern archery in any form i.e. modern flatbow/hybrid, recurve or compound. If anyone is an enthusiast for any other archery tradition they also are more than welcome.
We do not make any draw-weight level compulsory for anyone as we realise how archers have to train up in draw-weight over time and those accustomed to reenactment and target archery may currently be accustomed to very much lower weights. We do however aim to encourage archers to train up and eventually master bow weights at levels close to or equaling those used in the past in military archery.
If you are interested in getting involved, simply contact me and I can let you know details of the next meet/shoot. Also keep in touch via East Kent Warbow Society